thanks for the song. lol
It wasn't a quiz it was a question, and as I suspected, you and I alone aren't able to solve that one. The answer is still lurking somewhere. Ginger's point was right on imho.
Thom, I think we all refer to "the program" for what it is, the modality of treatment first popularized at Synanon,split off by CEDU, bastardized by Art Barker, continued by Mel Sembler, tweaked by Miller Newton, reclaimed by Loretta Parrish and countless other adolescent treatment center directors. It is all and the same, and it is "the program". It has it's roots in chinese/Korean thought reform, which is why the druggies used to yell at us "THE SEED SUCKS". It did, you know its true, and saying it won't lead to a needle in your arm.
Also, the "I wasn't shit on the streets" "I would be deadinsaneinjail without the Seed" "no one really liked you" "you were a big asshole on the streets" (like we all ran around skid row or something) and many other types of "worthless litany" was prevalant and rampant in the Seed.It was a big part of the fundamental 'treatment' we got, break us down to nothing and then bestow validity to us after we break.
"luv ya Karen" as the 14 year old virgin girl stands weeping after being torn up and called a slut in front of 500 of her 'friends', told she was ugly, told she was only used for sex, that no one really possibly could have liked her. This was the "magic" that Art stole from the synanon and graciously bestowed on us children some 29 years ago.
Basically, powerless without the group means the same thing as worthless without the group. I would refer you to Marc's post a few threads back. Marc was in the same warehouse, perhaps at the same time you were down there on 84th near the dike, you know, the real hot place with the big bugs and the barbed wire.
I Was never a drug addict and I suspect that prior to going in, you were not either. Art rarely took real addicts, and when he did, if memory serves me correctly, they mostly made a lot of fanfare about it and then they usually disapeard within a short amount of time.
What I was was a messed up kid. Messed up because my mother deserted me, messed up because my father was alternatively a control freak and a neglector, messed up because I was seeking self medication thru pot, poor friends and bad decisions. But addict, never!!!(as I sip my 'required' cup of morning coffee).
I have been drug free for about 20 years, don't smoke cigs and seem to be able, like most people, to drink socially without any hint of a drinking problem.I dont' drink every day or even every week. Sometimes when I do I have too much which results in me having way to much fun, just ask those at the convention this past weekend. This is after going thru addiction treatment at age 14. Imagine this. I will never attribute my decision to stop smoking pot to the program.actually, I just kinda stopped enjoying it one day.
As a matter of point, Thom, I am a Seed graduate that like so many of my graduate friends, took much more drugs after graduating (you too?), but now had a healthy mistrust of all authority figures and had no family support group to fall back on. After all, my father and I weren't speaking.I was a "druggie" , and he was a board member of Straight, Inc. He thought I was dying, and I thought he was crazy. We were both wrong.
What I needed was a real family, not an artificial addiction diagnosis, brainwashing and cultic behavior.
Which leads us right back around to my original point, we have huge differences in perception on what occured there, but unlike what Suzy taught me, I still like you even tho we disagree. you seem kinda cool, actually, and I am glad to have you around here.
[ This Message was edited by: GregFL on 2002-06-10 08:16 ]
[Ok, I was playing around with the 'censor bad words' feature that came with this bbs software. I made it switch out "Miller Newton" for "Miller 'Fr. Cashin' Newton" just for laughs. I see now that it really changed the mood of someone's post and so I've taken out those aliases (there were some other good ones) and returned Greg's post above to it's original sense and form.
Ginger (aka Antigen)
and I used the opportunity to correct some spelling and grammatical errors. It was a cool idea Ginger.
[ This Message was edited by: Antigen on 2002-06-10 15:11 ]
[ This Message was edited by: gregfl on 2002-06-10 17:00 ]